Saturday, April 27, 2013

Theatre review: "Clybourne Park" at Pittsburgh Public Theater

Knowing that Bruce Norris’s play ClybournePark won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award could be an impediment
to appreciating the current production at Pittsburgh Public Theater. You might expect a masterpiece, instead of just admiring
a very well-conceived and well-constructed script with more promise than it
delivers. Therein lies the problem of advance knowledge along with an
anticipatory idea of the intention. Nonetheless, a superior cast of visiting
actors makes it all work superbly, with one of them giving an outstanding
performance. Credit too director Pamela Berlin for melding everyone into a
wonderfully coordinated ensemble, quite an accomplishment.

Norris has created what some critics have
described as a satire. It spins off from Lorraine Hansberry’s true masterpiece A Raisin In The Sun with a second act
sequel. Clearly in both acts the core issue is racism and that is explored from
a variety of angles but stays more diffused than intensely focused, dealing
with people bewildered by such a subject, mentally and emotionally meandering
into and out of marginal and sometimes significant thoughts and ideas. Such
people certainly are believable. Therein lies Norris’ talent. Most of the time
is spent on the characters’ human, often very funny foibles. That makes for
many entertaining moments while, at the same time, keeping us outside their self-disguised
deepest feelings.

Hansberry wrote about the black Younger family’s
highly emotional struggle and decision to move into a house in an all-white
1950s Chicago neighborhood, Clybourne Park. The neighborhood association sends
Karl Lindner to try to buy them out. Norris looks at that from the perspective
of white neighborhood people not seen in A
Raisin In the Sun with only one character from that, Karl, as the fulcrum.
This story begins by hovering over the sometimes buried story of why the house
owners, Russ and Bev, want to leave their home. Karl tries to talk them out of
it while Russ and Bev’s black housemaid, Francine and her husband Albert, get
accidentally trapped in the discussion.

The second act takes place 50 years later when a
white couple wants to buy the property and replace the house in an area which
became all-black. To do so, that couple must negotiate with the neighborhood
association which includes Lena, a relative of the long-since-gone Younger
family.

All too human chatter and gab in the first act
merge with stereotypical racist generalizations, which skitter on the surface while
causing little harm. There is anger there, Russ’s, but it is directed at his
neighbors given the pain he feels about the tragedy which took place in his
house. In the second act, amid more diffused conversation, Lena tries to make an
emotional case for honoring the good things that happened once the Youngers
moved in and for not obliterating the
legacy.

Clearly, from what I’ve said, these people
cannot or choose not to dwell intently and thoroughly on racism. In fact, in
the second act, they degenerate into telling crude racist jokes rather than
getting involved in deep arguments. Hence the satire.

Thus Norris comments, making them not very
likeable, as if we are meant to judge them. If we relate to them, it would not
be comfortably. Norris has also come up with a lot of inventive parallel
details in the 50-years later act which add to a sense of craftsmanship and a sense
of intelligent design. As if these were real humans lost in a garden of Eden,
not seeing the forest, only the trees. Intellectually such invention has much
virtue.

Brad Bellamy gives a remarkably well-developed and
especially distinctive sense of Russ’ disabling emotional pain. And, in the
second act, he makes equally memorable the role of handyman Dan who
accidentally uncovers Russ’ secrets. As the seemingly jovial and well-meaning
Karl, Tim McGeever convincingly stays full of that man’s headstrong and blatant
ignorance. I was also impressed by Bjorn DuPaty as Francine’s husband Albert
with his thorough yet subtle sense of quiet dignity and careful deference to
the dominant white folks.

Scenic designer Michael Schweikardt perfectly
conveys the sense of these two homes in transition. The second act’s set, no
doubt conceived by Norris, makes its own special comment, as if confirming
belief that such a property inevitably would deteriorate when inhabited by
black people.

Norris has given us a lot to ponder.
Cumulatively you can come away admiring his perception and skill.That’s what
makes this play so good. And the performances maximize its virtues. I wanted
more. To be moved. To feel the pain and shame of the racism that still darkens
our lives. Those dimensions lurk beneath the ground in Clybourne Park.

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About Me

Contact me: gordon.spencer@cox,net
My theatre reviews aired Sundays on WRCT Pittsburgh on "The Best of Broadway" 2-3pm.The playlists and those for "Classics" (3-5) are found at "Gordon Spencer on WRCT." Other reviews appeared in Pittsburgh CITY PAPER.I wrote and broadcast some for the Sunday Arts Magazine on WQED-FM and hosted programs until 2005 budget cuts. In Pittsburgh reviews also appeared in now-defuncts PULP and THE FRONT WEEKLY. Much of that time I wrote for PITTSBURGH MAGAZINE and taught Italian. Acting: roles at South Park Theater and for Throughline Productions.
1992 to 2001 Milwaukee reviews were in SHEPHERD EXPRESS, “The Best of Broadway” was on WOKY, I hosted jazz programs (WYMS) and classical music (WFMR).
Previously, Albuquerque: news reporter for KKOB-AM, classical music and jazz on KHFM, jazz on KUNM teacher of jazz history at the University of New Mexico also teaching Italian, having lived in Italy in the 70s.
A New Yorker for 18 years, most often I was on the air with classical music at WNCN, but for a few years a professional actor. More about the career is at blogged "Station Breaks by Gordon Spencer."